Orion: You
by PallaPlease
Summary: [West/Lee]  Prologue to a large fantasy alternaverse Zeero fanfic currently in the works.  A man on a subconscious quest is found by the one he seeks.  [Complete?]  Review, people!


You  
--  
"Isn't anyone trying to find me/  
Won't somebody come take me home/  
It's the damn cold night/  
Trying to figure out this life/  
Won't you take me by the hand, take me somewhere new/  
I don't know who you are/  
But I'm/  
I'm with you..."  
-Avril Lavrigne, 'I'm With You'  
--  
Author's Notes: I'm pretty sure you don't really need to guess what the coupling is in this. But wait! Yes, it's West/Lee, /but/ it's a side-story to a particularly long alternate universe Zeero fanfic I've been plotting for a while. There are fantasy elements and such forth...and this can serve as a prologue of sorts to the story, which is called 'Orion.' :]   
--  
  
It was snowing and he hated it, spent minutes shivering in the freezing cold of the New York City winter as the melted water coursed over his limbs and threatened to freeze on flesh quickly losing heat. He had long since crossed his arms over his slim chest, focusing on the strain of breathing in spite of the numb burning in his ribcage as his heart threatened to tear, and he knew the people rushing along the sidewalk could not be aware of the stinging. Still, not one person had even turned from their umbrella to study him with pity, and he wondered that they could ignore someone so well. Acutely, he felt the pang of longing, already missing the welcome, simple rain of summer visits to Ireland and the comforting warmth of his nana, and he thought darkly on how he had failed his college courses.  
  
And the bleeding in his heart came yet, alarming him with how he seemed to know without having even visited a doctor, but it was a thing he had innately assumed. He had learned, over the years, his assumptions tended to be eerily right most of the time, though he rarely took the time to follow them correctly. If he sensed he was dying, even at the age of twenty, then, so far as he was concerned, he was screwed. "Don't even have bus money," he grumbled, hunching over as he pressed his back resolutely to the brick wall of the soulless building behind him. He hissed and straightened up, red hair slicked to his skin with the steady downfall of blizzarding snow, and glowered at the dark sky.   
  
"Damn it!" he yelled and now people turned to stare, faceless executives that had achieved what he could not, had wanted to. "What kind of game is this?" He was ranting to God and he could see, in his mind, Nana gasping in horrified disapproval, her good Catholic senses unable to grasp why her beloved grandson would swear or demand an answer from the Lord. "If You want me dead," and he shook his head, trying to dissuade the rain mingling with the snow in the eccentricities of east coast weather, "then just get it over with!"  
  
Nothing came, nothing happened, and he realized, as the sorrowful disappointment mingled with the bright ivory agony in his breast, he was not going to receive any reply for the time being. It was at this point that he found he was crying quietly, pale tears hidden by the spotted dew of snow dripping into cold water on his cheeks, smoothed over by the few droplets of rain. The pain sparked brighter, flashing along nerve endings and intimating it could explode, set his essence on fire, and he slumped over, falling into a bent crouch, hands dangling over his knees and face pressed into one wet jean's knee. It grew, spread like wildfire, and twisted his innards into flaming knots, and he was too suddenly exhausted to fight it, to preserve his sanity or life. Was this what it felt, he questioned with the detachment of one near to accepting finality, to be eaten up from the inside?  
  
And then, as the fire scorched him fiercer than ever it had in the past month, it screamed inside his body, an intelligible scream only he could hear, and he convulsed, coming close to pitching headfirst into the sidewalk as it streaked invisibly from his the bonds of his skin.   
  
"Have you been looking long for me?" a woman's voice, light but liltingly sarcastic, interrupted the sudden peace, and he slowly lifted his head, dark brown eyes blinking up at the shadowed face above him. It was swallowing him, this unexpected release from the bleeding pain he had grown accustomed to, and he stared at her, unable to determine the features thrown into deep shadows by the umbrella her small hand clutched determinedly around. The soft muzzle of a dog nuzzled pleasantly at his limp hand, clammy on his skin, and his attention switched from the source of relief to the canine panting happily at him. A harness hooked onto the dog's torso, connected to the sturdy leash trailing back to the young woman, signified its purpose. "I'm blind," she explained in a no-nonsense tone, holding her tiny hand out for him to pull up to his feet. He did so and found she was remarkably smaller than his own rather compact, if slim, Irish self.   
  
The umbrella tilted back to reveal an Oriental face, yellow skin with a pointed chin and almond eyes clouded by thick white cataracts, and the woman smiled, her dark hair curled at her chin and highlighted with shaded green. She was not a woman, he came to the conclusion, but a girl, perhaps eighteen in age. Oh God, he thought with a temporary streak of horror, what if this is a scam?  
  
"It's odd that you've lost your way," the girl-woman said, wrapping the leash a little around her wrist and walking forward down the sidewalk as she dropped his hand. Her umbrella bobbed over her forehead to obscure her face from the rain, and he could not help but follow her, cutting a swath through the path of insignificant sameness. "You're the very reason I can't walk without Dillond now," she continued in a neutral voice and, though it made little sense, he understood it as he had understood he was dying. "I saw you coming, to the day, last year, the night of my seventeenth birthday."  
  
The girl stopped on the slick cement, turning slowly to face him, and she smiled, a small twist of her lips in the direction of the sky, her umbrella held in one hand and Dillond's leash in the other. "Light," she spoke, almost breathlessly, facing him nearly unerringly, "everywhere, tipping off your skin in erratic waves. It was my first vision and that...glorious light! Everything about you was light, clumsy and unpracticed and unbound!"  
  
Streams of raining snow melted on his lower lip as he watched the blind girl on the sidewalk speaking to him, dripping to his chin and from there to the spotted ground beneath his feet. "Do I know you?" he questioned bluntly, feeling he should, his entire being aching to know her who healed him.  
  
"You are Envoy," she answered with an enigmatic smile, "and I am Star Seer. We are meant to prepare for Orion."  
  
"I'm Orin," he retorted in a demand of sorts. "Orin West."  
  
She laughed, hugging the leash to her chest while Dillond snuffled eagerly at his pockets. "And I am Marcia Lee.  
  
"We wait for Orion."  
--  
Author's Notes [End]: Confused? That's all right! It will all be made clear...whenever I get around to writing on 'Orion.' *shuffles feet guiltily* I can't explain why it's so easy for me to write West/Lee when it ought to be Zeero... 


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